


And Where he Steps, Dark Flowers Bloom...

by Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae



Series: Ancient Works [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Child Murder, Familial Expectations, Other, Prologue, Unnamed dark family, Vague Mabinogion references, pre-books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 12:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16743643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae/pseuds/Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae
Summary: Harry's life has never been easy and this may be an explanation why.





	And Where he Steps, Dark Flowers Bloom...

**Author's Note:**

> Summary, what summary?  
> Rated for safety. Not beta-read. Presented as-is. Ancient work.  
> The Harry Potter series and all recognisable characters are owned by JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic and Pottermore. No money is being made on this work and was written to explore alternative ideas in the Harry Potter Universe.

  
  


_...Stir five times dweasel and add seven drops of willingly given griffin’s blood....._

Dark, greasy hair flopped over dry, tired eyes as the brewer carefully followed the scrawled instructions on the tatty scrap of parchment.  
After nearly a year’s worth of work, the potion would be finished in less than a week and he still had to acquire an ingredient; two flawless emeralds, of three carats each that he could purchase over the counter in ‘Carborundum’ down Knockturn alley.

This was the easier version of the potion. Thank the deities that he hadn’t needed to collect a bushel of fresh broom, meadowsweet and oak flowers, along with the flight feathers taken from two ~living~ night hunting birds.....All of this effort expended because of a twisted hex that had missed it’s intended target, causing infertility that even the most skilled healers could do nothing about.

A year and a day’s worth of constant checking and stirring, brewing and testing, all so his wife could finally bear him the child she so desperately wanted.

He sighed and counted the drops of griffin’s blood into the cauldron, watching as the sludgy brown turned into a clear, glowing violet. Nodding to himself, he checked the section off of the list and read the next step, squinting at the crabbed copperplate handwriting.

_Remove from the heat and cool. After one hundred and sixty eight hours have passed, add one drop ouroboros venom and two powdered flawless gems to the total weight of six carats. Emeralds and rubies are preferred, whilst sapphires of various colours may be substituted, but the gems must be matched and flawless._

_The potion will change to a cloudy turquoise and must be stirred three times widdershins over a low flame, turning up the heat in one minute increments until the concoction begins to boil. Remove from the heat immediately, cover, and cool to room temperature as quickly as possible._

_Once cool, insert a silver stirrer and bring up a drop of the solution, flick the stirrer so the droplet is released into the air, making a small turquoise tear that must be caught on raw silk before it hits the earth. Repeat until you have nine uncontaminated samples. Grind these tears into a dust-fine powder and set aside._

_Store the remainder of the potion in a crystal flask marked with the symbols for the Sun and Venus and place in direct moonlight for at least two hours._

That just left the last ingredient, the most difficult to acquire, but one he had collected over a year ago. He shuddered in reminiscence.

_Precisely twelve hours after the addition of the gems, pour the potion into a silver cauldron and stir twenty one and one-half times the sign of infinity, then thrice dweasel at a steady pace, whilst adding the breath stolen from a new-born baby mage of the same sex as required. The liquid will congeal and become hot._

His eyes flicked up to check on the tiny silver flask that was tucked neatly behind a couple of indigestion potions.   
It had taken him forty minutes to collect this ingredient. Thirty six minutes to disable the wards surrounding the house and gain entry to the nursery, confounding the nursery house-elf and then, four eternal minutes, watching the tiny mite struggle and fight, relinquishing his life so that another could begin.

  
_Do NOT stir. leave to deliquesce for twelve hours. Store the liquid in a quartz flask and the powder in a leather pouch until needed._

_The completed potion will be odourless, flavourless and colourless and can be introduced using a favourite food or drink._

_Twenty four hours before using the potion on the woman, take the powdered turquoise that was set aside, and with a small funnel, introduce the whole of the granules into the infertile male’s urethra, making sure that the dust gets as deep into the man’s body as possible, where it will conjoin with the next ejaculation._

_Warn the recipient that there will be pain and there will be blood at next orgasm. If there is no blood, the magic will have failed and there must be a wait of at least three years before this potion may be tried again._

_It has been noted that on the few occasions that this potion has been made, the child born of these magics will have a difficult life due to the latent dark influence of the corpse soil and the unbalancing effect of the Felix Felicites. However, if the babe survives to age twenty-one, the influence of the corpse soil will be dissipated and the child will gain a life-mate who must follow the traditional courting rituals of the high families, as dictated by side-effects caused by the blood of the griffin and ouroboros venom, else the mating will not be true and no children will be born of the union._   
_It has also been noted that where possible, the life-mate magic will choose a sibling of the babe the breath was stolen from, however the nearest unbonded blood relative of the sacrificed child is also a possibility._

He grimaced. That wouldn’t matter, the babe he murdered would have been an only child. The mother had been badly damaged during his birth, so the mediwizards had predicted that she would never be able to bear another and there were no unbonded members of the family that he knew of. Not that it was be a great loss, considering how dark the whole family seemed to be.

_In particularly strong parents, it has been observed that the placenta should be burned immediately after parturition, due to a strong tendency of the afterbirth to transfigure into homunculi._

A week and one day left and then he would have the heir his family demanded and Lily would have the baby she so desperately desired.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know that the title refers to Olwen and the story calls upon Blodeuwedd. The rest of the story was supposed to be the description of the difficulties of the courting of Harry by whoever I decided to pair him up with after the fall of Voldemort (A lot of the old purebloods intermarried, so I didn't need to stick to the Dark side, or I could claim that the last member was a muggleborn from an old squib line, there are lots of options). I have, somewhere, a list of the twenty-one steps (with reasons) that the courtier was going to need to follow. Some steps were basic ~ supply a horse, a dog and two goats, through to ~ Announcing the suit in all magical enclaves where Harry is known, and even ~ provide 2lb of magical salt (Not as easy as it sounds). If anyone feels inspired to give this a go, let me know and I'll hunt up the list. :-)


End file.
